The Sharpie Blog: Where we share the amazing stuff people do with Sharpie

Tag Archives: NEW Start With Sharpie campaign

As you know, we, the Sharpie folk, have been kicking off our new Start with Sharpie campaign and we have seen some amazing things rolling in from our biggest Sharpie enthusiasts– including our own fabulous Newell employees.

We challenged our amazing Newell family to share what they are starting with Sharpie and now we are taking the opportunity to feature one of these internal Sharpie rock stars and what they (or in this case their daughter) has started with Sharpie.

Myra Lee, Director of Marketing Communications for sister brand, LENOX Industrial Products & Services in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, submitted this adorable photo of her 11-year-old daughter, Paige, who took creative liberties when writing her name on her new bag with Sharpie markers.

It’s amazing how something as simple as labeling your stuff can turn into an outlet for self-expression!

Now that you have seen what some of us are starting with Sharpie…what are you gonna start?

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude! So call me lame but that’s the first thing that pops into my mind when I think about skateboarding. I’m sure the skaters of the world would prefer I not refer to them as dudes, mostly because dude has a somewhat negative connotation, as in slacker, lazy, wandering, aimless – you know, The Big Lebowski kind of dude.

Dude or no dude, fact is there are more than 20 million skateboarders in the U.S., most of them under the age of 24. These dudes (which I mean only in the coolest way) ride their boards for lots of reasons, among them this one that I thought was particularly insightful extracted from the dclaim blog: Carving out creative lines under cloudless skies.

I get it. Like sky writing and more. Skateboarding IS an art. So is it any surprise that this daring form of self-expression should also find its way onto the skateboards themselves?

Sharpie has a dude (well, we are sort of just borrowing him) — an acclaimed skateboard artist who takes no offense at the term because his amazing art speaks for itself. Meet Mark Rivard. Mark currently appears in Sharpie’s new advertising campaign alongside one of his amazing skateboards and the Sharpie MINI Markers he used to create it.

Mark got his start designing skateboards after a serious skiing accident left him with time to ponder — and practice — his art. In his own words, borrowed from Mark’s website:

Skateboards are the cornerstone of my work. They are what sparked my re-interest in art. We’ve all heard skaters say “Skateboarding saved my life.”, well in my situation it was a skateboard that literally altered the direction of the rest of my life. I don’t think I would have died if I had never started skateboarding but I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for that first board and that first sketch.

Mark’s story is a good one, so we put together a video where Mark takes us behind-the-scenes and shares with us the details of how he came to discover his passion and the true mission of his life:

Something else you should know about Mark. We’ve been working with him for awhile now as part of his participation in the Sharpie Squad, and he gets our vote for best-skateboard-artist-all-around-greatest-guy-ever! It’s awesome to be able to point you to someone so deserving of all the praise. Mark is one nice guy…he’s the duuuuuuuuude!

Cheeming Boey is a California-based artist who has gained notarity for the AMAZING art he creates on coffee cups. By combining two very simple things, paper cups and Sharpie Pens, he ceates museum-worthy masterpieces that continue to ignite interest around the globe. In the same way that Warhol made soup cans famous, Boey is pushing the limits of pop culture with his coffee cups.

Not only has Cheeming been busy busting out amazing new work and ad campaigns, he has also just returned from a nine-week stint driving around the U.S. and documenting his travels comic book-style– complete with video highlights– while also working on his literary debut, funded completely through Kickstarter.